Don't stop believing...

Okay, that was a different kind of journey; this one's called I-Journey and it's where I'm at with the blogging right now:

The latest Wordle...

Hope I die before I get old...

Jings, it's a thought isn't it? Not the Who per se but the dieing and getting old bit.

I was having a shave in the shower this morning on my new wet'n'dry electric shaver thingy and was struggling to get anything resembling the closeness of a blade. Victor Kiam, where are you when I need you? Anyway, I digress...as I was trying to get the thing to take away that tricky bit under the chin, just at the top of the neck I was reminded of a visit, many many years ago to the old folks home my maternal grandfather was in.

My dad and I had gone along to see Grampa Michael - who used to drive a white beetle and wore a beige Harrington jacket (not always at the same time) - in a council run care-home in the South Side of Glasgow. He was getting on by this stage and had started to have real difficulty with the day to day stuff. He was in need of a shave so my dad got out Grampa's wee battery shaver and suggested I do the needful. I'm not sure how I old I was at the time but I remember finding it really tricky and dad & grampa having a wee chuckle to themselves about how you needed to get the skin taut and maybe press a wee bit harder with the shaver than you perhaps felt comfortable with. It's only now as an adult I realise how tricky shaving someone else actually is - it's hard enough doing me. But once again I'm digressing. The real point I was getting to is one which came to me under the water jets this morning as I remembered the episode: there's no way you're getting me into an old folks home. The reek of piss, the smell of cooking, the slow decline and the lack of dignity...no thanks.

I'm not suggesting the live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse bit - though two out of three as Meat Loaf reminds us ain't bad - but maybe a wee "dodgy handbrake near a cliff" moment might be called for when the time comes...

The big cd shelf tidy paused for multiple sensational @FRabbits interludes. This guy was impressed... #music

Hey, all y'all, remember this. Important stuff. #singletrackroads #driving

It's the vinyl countdown...

.Woah! Getting seriously excited about Record Store Day tomorrow. Heading down to Glasgow for the duration in anticipation of seeing Iain Shaw, Admiral Fallow and Frightened Rabbit all doing their live thing.

I know it's the night before and therefore hasn't happened yet but it's so good to be able to get excited again by music and the communal enjoyment of it. Music has been my overriding passion for as long as I can remember. Certainly I was hooked long before acquiring Guns n Roses' Appetite For Destruction way back in 1987. Johnny Cash on dad's car stereo was almost certainly to blame.

Now, almost a quarter of a century later I find myself - in the style of a grumpy old man - lamenting the passing of 'all the good stuff'. Though to be fair I'm not sure if I mean Britpop and indie or the 1960's.

Over the last 18 months or so I've become completely absorbed by the music of Admiral Fallow and Frightened Rabbit. Their lo-fi, folk tinged melancholia, very much like the old Heineken ads, reaches the parts other music cannot; reflective, thought-provoking and uplifting in equal measure. The only problem with these guys is that they're not internationally famous yet. For reasons I've yet to fathom. I know, as well as anyone, how subjective musical tastes are. Indeed they must be. But I'm staggered that neither the Rabbits or Admiral Fallow have yet penetrated the 'mainstream consciousness'...maybe it's better that way.